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Arrested US hermit had fine taste: police

He would meditate on an overturned bucket while staring up at the sky and knew all the eagles that nested nearby.

But despite 27 years of seclusion in the woods, Christopher Knight also had a taste for the finer things in life, US authorities said on Thursday, after dismantling the hermit's lair in the far northeastern state of Maine.

In the 47-year-old's camp they recovered goods that included high-end sleeping bags and a new tent.

He was wearing brand new shoes and gloves, all believed stolen, when authorities arrested him after he tripped a surveillance sensor at a camp last week.

They believe Knight may be responsible for more than 1000 burglaries of food and other staples during the nearly three decades he hunkered down in the woods.

Game Warden Sergeant Terry Hughes said authorities believed Knight broke into cottages and stole quality products because they would last longer.

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"He was a fussy eater," said Dave Proulx, a nearby cottage owner who tried to capture the hermit six or seven years ago after falling victim to more than a dozen break-ins.

Authorities on Thursday pulled apart Knight's camp, later displaying the "evidence" taken for locals to recover.

There were several Nintendo Game Boys and a wristwatch, along with shovels, rakes, coolers, cooking gear, a coffee pot and even toilet paper.

Many locals said they were relieved by Knight's arrest after enduring years of break-ins.

Frank Ten Broeck, a retired New Jersey police official who has a cottage nearby, marvelled at Knight's fortitude.

"To me, this is mind-boggling. I just can't believe this guy was here 27 years," he said. "This is some of the most severe weather you can go through."

A corrections officer at Kennebec County Jail in Augusta said Knight was refusing requests for interviews.

He has applied for a court-appointed lawyer and hasn't entered a plea to the burglary and theft charges stemming from the break-in at Pine Tree Camp, a facility for special needs people.

Authorities said they caught Knight with $US283 ($A269.72) in goods in his backpack after he fell into a trap set by Hughes, who has been trying to capture the elusive woodsman for years.

In his police mug shot, Knight is clean-shaven, has short-cropped hair and is sporting a style of eyeglasses from the 1980s.

It's a different look than in his photo from the 1984 yearbook from Lawrence High School in Fairfield, Maine. In it, Knight is wearing horn-rimmed glasses and has long, thick dark hair as he leans against a tree.

The blurb accompanying the picture says Knight's plans were to become a computer technician.

But authorities said by the time he was about 19, he'd disappeared into the woods.

Authorities say Knight doesn't show signs of mental illness and they've uncovered no other motive for his seclusion except that he wanted to be alone.